Another voice, hoarse with rage: "Curse ye, devil that ye are, with yer oily tongue and city ways! where's me daughter Letty, me little lass, that ye took up to the big city and threatened to make a lady of?"
A voice, hushed and slow: "They—say—the—child—is—in—London."
The newcomer, flicking the ash from his cigarette, glowered at the last speaker and hissed: "As for you, Black Bart, alias Jasper Vinton, remember that one word from me would set all Scotland Yard on your trail!"
A new voice from the table: "Stand back, Hector Walsingham! I would rather be the poor working girl I am than the gilded toy your wealth would make me—and besides, you wear made ties! I'll have to speak to the stage manager about that," continued the speaker in less dramatic tones. "Look, it's one of those horrible made things that fasten at the back of his neck with a harness buckle—see his hand go up to it!"
The newcomer emitted a mocking laugh, but judiciously sought a seat in the next room.
"Say—new idea for a melodrama," came another voice from the long table. "The old thing with an Ibsen twist. Stern father ready to drive erring daughter from his door in a snowstorm, but it won't snow! Of course he can't send her off in pleasant weather. It clouds up every few days, and the old man hopefully gets his speech ready—'Curse ye, ye are no longer a daughter of mine!' but the sun comes out again. Girl gets nervous. Young squire gets nervous, too, though he's married the girl in secret. He begs the old man to put her out and have it over with, even if the weather is pleasant. Old man won't hear of such a thing. Got to have a howling snowstorm. His mind fails; he sits in the chimney corner driveling about the horrible winters they used to have when you could curse a daughter out almost any day in the week. Everybody disgusted at the way things are dragging. Young people quarrel. Divorce! Young squire sails for Labrador to try it again, where you can count on the winters. Girl watches ship out of sight, and it snows! Snows hard. But too late—ah, God, too late! She rushes back home to find the old man delirious with joy. He starts in to do his speech at last, but she slowly strangles him with her muscular young hands. Rather good curtain, that—yes?" He looked around the table appealingly, but the others had turned from him to another newcomer, a young man of dark and sinister aspect, whom they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's despairing cry, "Merciful Heavens, the river is choked with ice!" above the deep baying of bloodhounds that issued from half a dozen able throats. The newcomer was obliging enough to scowl and demand fiercely, "Tom, you black rascal, ain't you mine, body and soul?"
A fair-haired youth at the table, with the face of an overfed Cupid, responded pleadingly: "No—no, Massa! Mah body may b'long to yo' but mah soul to de good Lawd who made it!"
"Crack! Crack! Crack! Take that, you black hound, and that, and that!" Uncle Tom cringed under the blows of an imaginary lash, and Legree seated himself at the long table. A bearded man at the head promptly became little Eva, with a piping voice. "Uncle Tom, dear Uncle Tom, I fear I am going to die in the last act."
The faithful slave gulped at his claret and water and replied tearfully, "Dar, dar, Miss Eba, yo' bre'k dis pore ole man's heart!"
"And, dear Uncle Tom, remember that the colored quartet will slink in and sing 'Rock of Ages' while I am dying on a camp bed in the parlor. Think of that, you black hound!"